Mark Weiss rolling self-portrait
I have submitted two whole cloth blog posts to Patch, which is an AOL America On Line project which comprises about 900 bureaus across the U.S. that use a combination of staffed reports and community contributions (I fall into the second category; I am submitting content for free).
I took this photo, a self-portrait, while biking toward Cafe Zoe in Menlo Park, along the Palo Alto Avenue creekside.
Not sure if I will continue to contribute content to Patch, or how to balance adding info and energy to this relative to that. Or, further, how to balance writing about arts, technology, culture and Ornette with actually working with artists, art and life. Or, reading. Or exercise. It is true, at the very least, that my first two Patch contributions, essentially homages to Bill Cunningham, forced me by concept to interact with people I was photographing.
Myself when I am Patch, the phrase, references Charles Mingus saying “myself when I am real” which I think means when he is engaged in something hyper-real, like making music. When I am “patch” in contrast feels somewhat less satisfying.
edit to add, May 9: I was pleased to see a story, dateline Palo Alto in my bible The New York Times, about Tim Armstong, AOL and Patch. But I am a still a little confused on how to differentiate him from Tim L. Armstrong, the lead singer of the rock band Rancid. The boy’s a(ol) time-bomb!
Plastic Alto with Mark Weiss 
Nice.
Very nice.